United States v. Haines

296 F. Supp. 3d 726
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 30, 2017
DocketCRIMINAL ACTION NO. 11–706
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 296 F. Supp. 3d 726 (United States v. Haines) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Haines, 296 F. Supp. 3d 726 (E.D. Pa. 2017).

Opinion

With respect to Defendant's resentencing, the Government acknowledges that he is no longer subject to the mandatory minimum or the sentencing enhancement prescribed by the ACCA. However, the Government maintains that Defendant's aggravated assault conviction constitutes a "crime of violence," as defined in § 4B1.2(a) of the Sentencing Guidelines, which, alongside his prior drug conviction, subjects him to a career offender enhancement under § 4B1.1.7 Defendant challenges the enhancement on the grounds *728that not all subsections of Pennsylvania's aggravated assault statute, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2702(a), satisfy § 4B1.2(a) and there are no available records that establish the specific subsection of the statute under which Defendant was convicted.

The Court heard argument during Defendant's resentencing hearing on October 2, 2017 and continued the hearing so that the issue could be fully considered.

In a Supplemental Sentencing Report, amended on October 5, 2017 ("Amended Supplemental Sentencing Report"), the Probation Office calculated Defendant's Guidelines range based on the assumption that he has no predicate crime of violence but provided an alternative range under the Government's approach.8 The disparity between the two calculations is substantial: in the absence of a predicate crime of violence, Defendant's Guidelines range is 37-46 months; with a predicate crime of violence, the resulting Guidelines range would be 151-188 months.9

II. DISCUSSION

A. § 4B1.2(a)

Section 4B1.2(a) of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, as effective November 1, 2016, defines a "crime of violence" as "any offense under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year," that-

(1) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another, or
(2) is murder, voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, aggravated assault, a forcible sex offense, robbery, arson, extortion, or the use or unlawful possession of a firearm described in 26 U.S.C. § 5845(a) or explosive material as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 841(c).10

The first prong of this section (the "force clause") applies to any crime that requires the "use of physical force against the person of another," (whether actual, attempted, or threatened) as an essential element. The second prong (the "enumerated offenses clause") applies to any crime that "substantially corresponds" to, and does not "sweep[ ] more broadly than," the "generic definition" of one of the listed *729crimes.11 To determine the elements of a generic offense, courts may look to the definition of the crime used by the states, learned treatises, and the Model Penal Code.12

In determining whether a prior conviction falls under § 4B1.2(a), courts have employed the "categorical" and "modified categorical" approaches outlined in the ACCA context.13 Typically, under the categorical approach, courts may "look only to the statutory definitions-i.e. , the elements-of a defendant's prior offenses,"14 and consider whether "the least culpable conduct hypothetically necessary to sustain conviction under the statute" falls under either clause of § 4B1.2(a).15 However, when the court is confronted with a statute that is "divisible,"-that is, when the statute "comprises multiple, alternative versions of the crime," a modified categorical approach applies.16 Under this approach, a court may look to a limited set of judicial records, such as the charging document and the plea agreement and colloquy, to determine the elements of the crime of conviction, and assess whether those elements satisfy either prong of § 4B1.2(a).17 These records are commonly referred to as Shepard documents.

B. Defendant's Aggravated Assault Conviction

Defendant was convicted of aggravated assault in 1990 at the age of 18. At the time, aggravated assault was defined under 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 2702(a) as follows:

(a) Offense defined. A person is guilty of aggravated assault if he:
(1) attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another, or causes such injury intentionally, knowingly or recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life;
(2) attempts to cause or intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes serious bodily injury to [a police officer or other member of a protected class] while in the performance of duty;
(3) attempts to cause or intentionally or knowingly causes bodily injury to [a police officer or other member of a protected class] in the performance of duty;
*730(4) attempts to cause or intentionally or knowingly causes bodily injury to another with a deadly weapon; or
(5) attempts to cause or intentionally or knowingly causes bodily injury to [a designated school employee] while acting in the scope of his or her employment or because of his or her employment relationship to the school.18

This Court has previously ruled that § 2702(a) is a divisible statute under which each subsection is a separate and alternative version of the crime, and so in assessing whether the conviction constitutes a "crime of violence," courts may limit their analysis to the specific subsection of the statute under which a defendant was convicted.19 Here, however, the Shepard documents for Defendant's aggravated assault conviction have been lost, preventing either party from establishing the specific elements of his crime of conviction. Therefore, Defendant's prior conviction cannot be a "crime of violence," unless § 2702(a) in its entirety, including each of its subsections, satisfies § 4B1.2(a).20

A few aspects of the statute will be particularly relevant to the Court's analysis:

First, the subsections of § 2702(a) differ in the minimum level of mens rea required.

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Related

United States v. Reyes-Romero
327 F. Supp. 3d 855 (W.D. Pennsylvania, 2018)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
296 F. Supp. 3d 726, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-haines-paed-2017.